The US Department of Energy (DOE)  has selected two teams—one led by TerraPower in partnership with GE Hitachi, building a 345 MWe sodium fast reactor with a molten salt energy storage system and one led by X-energy, which has designed a modular 80 MWe (scalable to a 320 MWe four-pack) high temperature gas-cooled reactor—to receive $80 million each in initial funding annually under the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP).

In this program, DOE provides initial funding to develop, test, license and build advanced nuclear reactors within five to seven years of the award. DOE plans to invest about $3.2 billion over seven years in these projects that will be matched by the industry.

Simultaneously, the  DOE approved a $1.4 billion multi-year cost-share award to the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) for the development and construction of the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP), a 720 MWe NuScale small modular nuclear power plant, made up of 12 small 60 MWe modules, to be located at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory site. NuScale (shown in the image) is the first of the new designs to be approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Read more in Forbes: "America Steps Forward To Expand Nuclear Power."